The Healthy Young People Empowerment (HYPE) Project is a five-phased, curriculum-based youth engagement program. The program teaches youth how to address obesity prevention, health disparities and chronic diseases in their community from a policy, systems and environmental change approach and a public health perspective. The five phases of HYPE are Think, Learn, Act, Share, and Evaluate. The project empowers youth to work with community leaders to create change through civic action projects focused on healthy eating and active living, empowering youth to become champions of positive change in their communities.

We have identified partners to pilot the HYPE project. Staff from each of these organizations have received training as HYPE youth advisors and are ready to implement the HYPE curriculum with the youth that they serve. We continue to search for additional youth-serving organizations that have the capacity to help us pilot this new program. 

Our first pilot group successfully launched and is currently in the ACT stage of their project. They are on track to wrap up their work by the end of the school year. To further strengthen and sustain the initiative, we are actively forming partnerships with other youth-serving organizations to pilot the HYPE program within their networks.

While these efforts are progressing, it is still early in the process, and we do not yet have data for other measures.